The present invention is a method of designing a single inlet high-speed vehicle. More specifically, the present vehicle is designed based on a Radial Deviation Parameter (RDP).
Since the 1950's, there has been a great number of air-breathing hypersonic vehicle concepts proposed in the technical literature. Likewise, there have been a number of proposed missions for which air-breathing hypersonic flight is of potential benefit, such missions range from using single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) to multi-stage-to-orbit (MSTO) flights. It is well known that the nature of such a high-speed flight within the Earth's atmosphere dictates many design concerns which must be addressed to create a vehicle that can accomplish the mission. Among other things, such vehicles must maintain a high capture area ratio, compress the captured stream tube to appropriate pre-combustion conditions, and integrate the airframe and propulsion systems. They must be able to handle the high heating loads with an effective thermal management system, and internally store the payload, structure, and fuel necessary to accomplish a given mission. The present designed configurations for hypersonic air-breathing vehicles satisfy many of the above-mentioned design concerns.